robothell | [ THE "DRIFT GOT HECKED UP BY TARN" CATCH-ALL POST ]

Why, June. Why? All he wants is to go be sad alone for a while. Rodimus doesn't look at her after that, turning to rest his back fully against the wall as he lets himself sink to the ground. If she won't let him go he might as well give up pretending he can actually summon up the energy to walk.

"He was brutalized and left for someone to stumble across by a genocidal ex-warlord's psychopathic fan-in-chief." He's not feeling up to referring to Megatron as his 'co-captain', as if he ever is. But particularly not right now. If she knows Megatron and Optimus then she'll know who he's referring to in at least part of that sentence. "He's--" That gets a helpless sort of half gesture that Rodimus feels accurately sums up the situation.

June's eyes narrow as she listens to Rodimus, even as she feels a strong tug of sympathy. Whoever Drift is -- not someone she's ever heard of -- he's obviously important to Rodimus. "Tarn did this," she says in understanding, her voice surprisingly flat, but then her face softens. Megatron made allusions to Rodimus being reckless and impulsive, but there's obviously a reason for it. She draws in closer as Rodimus gestures helplessly, laying a hand gently on his plating.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly.

"Yeah, yeah he did." She didn't ask for a confirmation but he has to give it anyway, sounding uncharacteristically defeated for a moment. He vents sharply, hand dragging down his face and smearing more energon over it before he catches himself and pulls it away - staring at it with an expression of almost horror. Yeah, guess what didn't click what he was covered in until just then.

But his expression darkens when she says she's sorry and he throws her a childish, surly look. "So am I, but that's not going to help anyone, is it?"

He is a shitty teenager. Accept him into your heart, June.

June catches that sick look on his face and whatever Megatron said about Rodimus being a problem child gets brushed aside, because June can tell he's hurting. She doesn't see spite there, just something painfully earnest. June draws her hand away and realizes her own skin is smudged with energon. Looking up at Rodimus she frowns slightly and withdraws a handkerchief from her pocket, moving to wipe some of the energon from the plating on his leg. She's probably going to need a bigger cloth.

"No, maybe not. But it's a good start." June's voice is level, but she means it to be comforting, or she hopes it will be, anyway. Rodimus is on the sulky side, but June can tell why. She knows her shitty teenagers, after all. "From what I understand, Megatron intends to take care of Tarn. Hopefully that stops all this for good."

That does not make him feel better in the slightest, and Rodimus snaps "He hurt my crew" before he can stop himself - mouth snapping shut the moment it comes out. He doesn't want to talk about this at all, and he absolutely does not want to talk to some human who is--

"What're you doing?"

His crew? Okay, that's something June hasn't heard before. Rodimus sounds oddly protective, and that resonates with June -- more than Rodimus expects, probably.

"I'm helping you clean up," June says mildly, apparently not bothered by how quickly her handkerchief is getting soaked with energon. That'll probably never come out. "You're very protective of them, aren't you?"

"It's toxic to humans," he says by way of trying to get her to stop. She should know that, if she knows Megatron and Optimus Prime. But he offlines his optics - submitting to this weird... whatever it is. Maybe if he gives in and lets her do whatever it is she wants to do she'll let him go and he can do something. That isn't this.

Best plan.

"I'm their captain." It's what he does, is what he wants to say, but he hasn't been doing a very good job of it lately. And he doesn't need to be reminded of it constantly.

"Yeah, I've been on this planet for about a month, surrounded by the stuff, and I haven't died yet. I'm not going to eat it, Rodimus, I'm just wiping it off."

Rodimus is definitely the difficult sort, she can see that right off, but that doesn't put her off too much. The winning combination of being the single mother of a teenager and an E.R. nurse has taught her a lot about the value of patience.

"Wait...you're the captain?" June purses her lips, looking slightly displeased. "Megatron neglected to mention that the last time I spoke to him."

"Well he wouldn't, would he? Walking around like he's the only captain while Optimus only ageed to it beause he's so desperate to believe that Megatron won't wake up one day and kill us all."

Ask him about his opinion of Megatron, June, it's not the greatest thing in the world. Something in his expression loosens when he sees his plating look normal instead of the bright magenta of energon. That's better, he thinks, much better.

"Still not sure how you're breathing," because that's clearly the biggest issue at stake here and not the fact there are two captains on one ship and one of them is a robot teenager and the other is robot Stalin.

"Yeah, me either," June says mildly. It really bugged her at first, but she pretty quickly found bigger things to worry about. She keeps scrubbing gently at his plating, notices the expression on his face and just barely smiles even as the energon soaks right through her handkerchief. Whatever, not like she thought she could clean him all up with just that tiny thing. But the gesture is important.

"Wait, you're both captain?" June's expression dissolves into something far more perplexed and just a touch skeptical. "Wait -- is this about Megatron's trial? Trailcutter mentioned something about that... Optimus made him captain? Oh my god, how wrong did that trial go?"

Rodimus took the outcome of the trial poorly, only unmatched by Prowl's absolute fury for the entire thing. Which Rodimus would have thought was hilarious and enjoyed his temper tantrums if he wasn't too busy dealing with the reality of handing part of his command to Megatron. Which means his answer is accompanied with a scowl.

"Prime gave Megatron the one guy who's actually committed to doing the best job possible no matter what to be his defense." He likes Magnus, he does. But seriously, he could have been a little less Magnus-y about the entire thing and no one would have blamed him. "There was other stuff too, though. Old laws, trial held on Luna 2. Things like that."

"...Are you saying he found a loophole?" June says slowly, and then a flat look settles on her face as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Of course he found a loophole. Oh my god."

June's really only gotten a fractured picture of things as they are in Rodimus' universe, meeting Autobots here and there, some of them crew of the Lost Light, some of them not. Some of them from far, far in the past, relative to everyone else. Rodimus is filling in some very critical gaps here, but a lot of this still doesn't make sense.

"Wait -- okay, how does this work exactly? You're captain of your ship...and Optimus also made Megatron captain? Isn't that...kind of a solitary position on a ship?"

That question doesn't even merit answering, not when June's got it figured out. Of course he did, because it's Megatron and it's impossible for him to actually be dead and gone and not bother anyone for any significantly long period of time. One of those constants that Rodimus has experienced first hand courtesy of a shot through the chassis.

He really hates Megatron.

Part of him wants to laugh at her second question, but he's too tired and exhausted to do so, so she just gets a strained grin, not entirely pleasant. "Yeah. Or at least that's how it's supposed to be." It clearly isn't and he is clearly not happy with it.

Oh my god, Cybertronians, you are giving June a headache.

"They'd rather listen to Megatron than you, is that it? Megatron. I mean, he seems...less like the murdering tyrant I expected, I'll give you that, but..."

But that's not what's really bothering Rodimus, is it. Or at least that's not what's bothering him the most. June's face softens as she wipes the handkerchief over the curve of a plate, drawing away to wring it out.

"It must be frustrating that Tarn's been hurting so many people you care about," she says. "From what Megatron told me, he sounds incredibly dangerous."

Yeah, not answering that first question because he absolutely does not want to think about it.

Putting Tarn into words is-- he's not sure how to do it, because it's just something every Autobot knows. Former Decepticons and 'bad' Decepticons aren't the only ones that have to worry about the DJD. Sure, they might not be their main target, but Rodimus doubts that would stop them if they happened to just stumble across a group of Autobots say, flying around space with a Phase Sixer on board.

So he just makes an affirmative sound, optics dimming. "Him and the rest of his happy murder squad."

Ah, right. Tarn is only the leader of many. Jesus Christ, Megatron, you got into some hard shit. June pats the plating of his leg, moving on to wipe some of the energon from his ridiculous foot pipes.

"Megatron's the one responsible for Tarn, isn't he?" June says, frowning, but her expression is soft, patient. "He's the one who made the D.J.D. in the first place."

High school is hard for everyone, June, including people with the ability to make their OCs into reality. He gives her a questioning look when she moves on because he's really not sure how or why this is happening to him.

"Yeah. Because apparently having a bunch of bots who go after people who've defected or deserted is exactly the sort of thing you want to have." He gives a huff, resting an elbow on one of his knees. "Most of the NAILs are people who ran away at the beginning or former Autobots. People don't leave the Decepticons and live, mostly."

Drift had been an exception, still was. But it doesn't feel like it.

Somehow, June's not surprised to see it. Not that she expects the Autobots have always kept their hands clean -- four million years is a long time, and your hands get dirty fast in war. She's had as much confirmed by a few others, more or less. June just watches him patiently, her lips still pursed in a frown as she reaches up to pat Rodimus' leg.

"So if Megatron's the one responsible for Tarn," June says, her voice oddly gentle, "why do you look so guilty?"

He doesn't know if it would be easier to live with some of the stuff he's done if he'd done it after the war properly begun, he doubts it though - you can't just blow up your city and justify it until it doesn't bother you anymore. It's what bothers him about Megatron, about this regret he just stumbled upon when Rodimus knows he claimed not to regret anything before the war really got going.

His optics flicker to June for a moment, expression crushed. He doesn't want to talk about the fact he can't protect his crew, especially someone he's just met. Magnus would know, Rung would know, and maybe he'll tell Drift eventually if he doesn't know, but... So he just looks at her before curling in more. Maybe if he doesn't answer he won't have to tell.

Seeing Rodimus' face fall like this wrenches at June's heart, and she almost feels bad for asking as she watches him draw in against himself. He looks sick with -- not just guilt, but loss and frustration, too. June just draws in closer, letting the handkerchief fall to the ground so she can press both hands against Rodimus' plating.

"It's not your fault he went after your friends," June says softly. "Tarn's a monster -- one Megatron created. Anyone would want to protect the people they care about...but that doesn't make what he did your fault."

"I should have protected them," he moans from where he's hiding his face in his arms. That's what he's supposed to do but he can't, he can't. He didn't. And Drift almost died because of it, Ratchet lost his leg because of it and the more he tries the more they die on him.

He doesn't know what to do, and he doesn't like that feeling any more than the guilt and the frustration.

June would hug that poor sad robot boy right now if she could, but unfortunately he is several times her size and she's all the way down here, so the best she can do is rest her weight against his leg, sighing..

"Rodimus..." Her voice is quiet and deeply sympathetic. "I know that nobody got hurt because you were idly standing by. I just don't believe that you let this happen."

Hug the sad, miserable robot baby, June. He's so sad. He's so miserable. He is in desperate need of a hug. And maybe June's right, but it doesn't make him feel any better about it.

"But I knew he was out there," he protests, as if by sheer force of will he can make her understand. "There had to have been something I could've done."

Something he could do now, and the desperation in his voice speaks to that more than his actual words.

June looks up at his face, at the desperate misery in his optics, and something in her chest heaves. The plating's still a little slick, but June sighs and presses her cheek to it anyway, the closest she can really get to hugging him.

"No," she says sadly, her gaze staying on his face. "I don't think there was, Rodimus. You couldn't have stopped him. And if you'd died trying -- who would look after your crew then? I think they need you more than that."

And she's right, Rodimus knows this tiny breakable organic is right. He knows he can't die, he still has too much to do for that to be an option; dying in the process of giving Tarn what for isn't going to help him with Luna 1 and everything relating to that. But it doesn't make knowing his uselessness any easier, any less of a weight to bear.

Especially when it's Drift, who he's failed before and can't deal with the thought of having done it again.

So instead he just exvents heavily, joints and frame relaxing bit by bit as he accepts the comfort he recognizes she's trying to give. Although that is kind of weird - he's never really associated humans with it; spent too much time trying to be killed by them to even consider it.

[ THE "DRIFT GOT HECKED UP BY TARN" CATCH-ALL POST ]

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